Time & Perspective Quote by Sidney Altman

Altman’s sentence reads like a thank-you note, but its real power is in how carefully it defines the conditions under which science can happen. The word “privileged” is doing double duty: it’s personal gratitude, and it’s a quiet admission that research is never just a meritocracy of bright minds. It depends on luck, stability, and patronage. By foregrounding “relative tranquillity,” he’s naming what scientists often leave implicit: breakthroughs are easier when you’re not dodging war, political purges, or institutional chaos. Tranquillity isn’t a mood here; it’s infrastructure.

The phrase “follow our own thoughts and inspirations” is a defense of intellectual freedom, a subtle pushback against the idea that research should always be immediately instrumental, centrally planned, or justified by quarterly deliverables. Altman, a Nobel-winning biochemist who helped show that RNA can act as an enzyme, benefited from precisely the kind of long-horizon basic research that looks indulgent right up until it remakes biology. The line implies: you don’t get paradigm shifts by micromanaging curiosity.

Then there’s the diplomatic praise of a “generous and forward-looking government.” It’s courteous, even strategic, but it also stakes a claim: public funding and liberal governance aren’t background details, they are co-authors. In an era when science is politicized, budgets are precarious, and “expertise” is treated like a faction, Altman’s civility becomes a form of advocacy. He’s reminding readers that the freedom to think is a civic achievement, not a natural resource.